American Airlines, slow off the dime in its moves to protect its business compared to United and Delta, already began major capacity cuts in response to the administration’s ban on non-U.S. residents entering the country if they’ve been to Schengen Area countries of Europe within the past 14 days.
With the government extending that restriction to the U.K. and Ireland, and with demanding drying up more and more each day, they’ve now taken things a step further. They are reduce international capacity by 75% year-over-year. Ostensibly this will apply March 16 to May 6, but many of these cuts will almost certainly last longer.
The airline had already announced plans to accelerate retirements of its Boeing 767 and 757 fleets. There won’t be a reason now to extend the life of Embraer E-190s that had been planned for retirement. And in the past few days they had been sending other planes – such as Airbus A330s – out to storage.
Now they’ll be parking a majority of their widebody jets and they’ve announced there will be only three long haul international routes left in their system.
- One daily Dallas Fort Worth – London Heathrow flight
- Three weekly Dallas Fort Worth – Tokyo flights
- One daily Miami – London Heathrow flight
American’s short haul international routes, to “Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Central America and certain markets in the northern part of South America” will continue (for now).
Domestic service will reduce 20% in April and 30% in May, though here too I wouldn’t be surprised to see additional cuts.
Internationally these changes mean American is suspending Sydney and Auckland (just 12 days before it was scheduled to end seasonal service anyway) on Monday.
It means suspending London flying from New York JFK, Boston, Chicago O’Hare and LAX over the course of the next week (they had already eliminated other London flights). Europe flights to Charlotte, Philadelphia and Phoenix are all gone because these airports aren’t approved to receive flights – the U.S. government was supposed to be checking passengers on arrival although instead they’ve been pursuing an unintentional herd immunity strategy. Final Eastbound flights are Sunday, and final Westbound flights Monday.
Other Europe routes are gone, and seasonal routes are delayed “”through early May, or later.”
Also on Monday American is suspending:
- New York and Miami – Rio and Georgetown, Guyana
- Dallas, New York and Miami – São Paulo
- Dallas and Miami – Santiago, Bogota, Guayaquil, Quito, Lima
- Miami – Brasilia, Manaus, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Cali, Medellin, Pereira
And if slot waivers relaxing rules that require an airline to operate their routes or give up the right to do so later are granted then we will see even more cuts.
Here’s the detail American is providing on their international schedule changes. You can see the full changes filed so far by American, including its domestic network, and by other airlines here.
Updated Asia schedules:
DFW | Tokyo-Haneda (HND) | Delayed inaugural flight; moved to May |
DFW | Hong Kong (HKG) | Suspended March 16 through July 1 |
LAX | Tokyo-Haneda (HND) | Suspended March 16 through May 6 |
LAX | Tokyo-Narita (NRT) | Suspended March 16 through May 6 |
Updated Australia schedules:
LAX | Auckland (AKL) | Final westbound flight will return to LAX on March 18; seasonal service is slated to begin again in October |
LAX | Sydney (SYD) | Final westbound flight will return to LAX on March 18; service suspended through May 6 |
Updated Europe schedules:
BOS | London (LHR) | Delayed inaugural flight; moved to May |
CLT | London (LHR) | Final eastbound flight on March 15; final westbound flight on March 16 |
JFK | London (LHR) | Phased suspension gradually implemented between March 16 and March 23; suspended through May 6 |
LAX | London (LHR) | Phased suspension gradually implemented between March 16 and March 23; suspended through May 6 |
PHL | London (LHR) | Final eastbound flight on March 15; final westbound flight on March 16 |
PHX | London (LHR) | Final eastbound flight on March 15; final westbound flight on March 16 |
ORD | London (LHR) | Phased suspension gradually implemented between March 16 and March 23; suspended through May 6 |
Updated South America schedules:
DFW | Bogota (BOG) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
DFW | São Paulo (GRU) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through June 3 |
DFW | Guayaquil (GYE) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
DFW | Santiago (SCL) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through June 3 |
DFW | Quito (UIO) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
DFW | Lima (LIM) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
JFK | Georgetown (GEO) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
JFK | Rio de Janeiro (GIG) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
JFK | São Paulo (GRU) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Barranquilla (BAQ) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Bogota (BOG) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Brasilia (BSB) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Cali (CLO) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Cartagena (CTG) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Georgetown (GEO) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Guayaquil (GYE) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Rio de Janeiro (GIG) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Lima (LIM) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Manaus (MAO) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Medellin (MDE) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Pereira (PEI) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Quito (UIO) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Rio de Janeiro (GIG) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
MIA | Santiago (SCL) | Will fly all legs as scheduled through end of day on March 16; suspended through May 6 |
This will not be the end of the route cutbacks. There almost certainly will be employee furloughs unless circumstances change. My sympathy goes out to everyone that’s affected.
Why is the DFW-HKG flight suspended to July when everything else is May?
This sounds like what happened to Braniff when they shutdown for good in May 1982 – all their international flying stopped first – especially to Central and South America, then the next day – the plug was pulled for all domestic service.
There will some movies and books coming in the future about this and all the inside details
how the carriers have been scrambling to basically shut down their long haul services .
Nest shoe to drop – how much/when of domestic capacity will be cut/shrunk in the coming days.
Re E190s.. How old are they? 15? 20 yrs?
@Gary – Why keep the flights they did? Miami-London is that big?
@Christian – they’re splitting up the cuts with BA, miami is one of the airports that is permissible for european arrival screening
I flew the LHR-ORD flight today. There were only 3 empty seats. Otherwise packed. There will still have to be some flights for people to fly. Many types of business can only be done in person.
John that flight was full because everyone is trying to get home before the lock. Take a look at a ORD-lHR flight and you might find 50 people. I would be surprised if each European flight had more then 5% business travelers on it,
Gary, I live close to DFW, I just double checked on flightradar, I am still seeing the DFW – FRA flight (now 787 instead of usual 777), as well as the DFW-MAD (also 787)
Though close, Auckland isn’t in Australia. Need to change the header to Australia / NZ